Society

Monday

Peter Hoskin

What you can get for $100 billion

We all know about the damage the credit crunch has wreaked on financial institutions, but this anecdote in Anatole Kaletsky’s column today is still pretty astonishing: “An even more spectacular case came to my attention in an e-mail I received in mid-November, when global stock markets hit their low-point (so far). Royal Bank of Scotland, my reader pointed out, spent $100 billion to buy ABN Amro, the second-biggest bank in the Netherlands, in October 2007. If only the directors of RBS had been a bit more patient, this is what they could have bought for the same $100 billion a year later: Citibank ($22 billion) plus Goldman Sachs ($21 billion)

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Politics | 29 December 2008

When David Cameron agreed last June to let his chief strategist work from California for six months, it seemed a timely break from what was threatening to become a dull job. Gordon Brown looked finished, and his party too weak to depose him. British politics threatened to be a comedy of errors stumbling on until the middle of 2010 — leaving plenty of time for Steve Hilton to go abroad, get married and send email advice from beside the swimming pool. From there, he must have watched in horror as British politics changed utterly. Even his fortnightly flights home will not have been enough to keep up with the bewildering

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Looking ahead to 2009

As Matt says in his column today, only fools or knaves make predictions nowadays. So it’s with the caveat that prediction is a mug’s game that I make an A-Z of predictions for 2009 in my News of the World column today. Having said that, it’s by no means a pointless exercise to say how the future looks now. In City terms, the fact that futures markets are wrong doesn’t make them useless. What people do today depends on what they think will happen tomorrow. As Anthony Wells brilliantly shows, it’s the expectation of an economic recovery that lifts Brown’s poll lead. When this expectation goes, as it will when

Daniel Korski

Futility in Gaza

Everyone expected the Israeli government and Hamas to honour a ceasefire; at least until Barack Obama’s inauguration, to allow the new U.S president time to get his feet under the desk. Rumours had been going around that one of Obama’s first acts would be to convene an Annapolis-style Mid East conference. Not to achieve peace, but to kickstart the kind of diplomatic process the region so sorely needs. But Hamas’ incessant shelling of southern Israel, its cancellation of a recent truce, and the pressures of the Israeli election –- which have seen the hawkish Likudnik Benjamin Netanyahu take a lead over Tzipi Livni, the pro-peace foreign minister, with Labour’s Ehud

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A testing year for South African democracy

Ever since the end of apartheid it was clear that the ANC would win every election it contested until it split, its role in the liberation struggle determined that. But this one party dominance was always going to be a bad thing for South Africa; a fully functioning democracy requires competition between political parties—a party that knows it will win at the ballot box whatever it does becomes detached from the peoples’ concerns and corrupt. I hadn’t paid much attention to the recent split in the ANC as the numbers of defectors seemed too small to make much of a difference. But Donald G. McNeil Jr., who was the New

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown should heed The Godfather’s advice

In The Observer’s feature on what will happen in 2009, Andrew Rawnselys says this about an early election: “The case for an earlier election is that things will get worse for Labour. I don’t see [Gordon Brown] wanting to believe that. Such is his contempt for his Tory opponent, he will reckon that waiting will make sure that David Cameron is “found out” by the voters. In common with most leaders, the prime minister will also think that the people will grow to love him the longer they have to get to know him.” This puts one in mind of that famous quote from Michael Corleone: “Never hate your enemies.

Peter Hoskin

The Tories have the high ground in the advertising battle

The feature on political advertising in the Independent on Sunday is both a fun and insightful read.  The party political poster mock-ups (which you can cycle through here) have been put together by some of the country’s leading Mad Men; so they’re a fairly good indication of the themes and images that the parties might deploy come general election time. To my eyes, they also demonstrate just how difficult it is for Labour to sell themselves during this downturn, particularly once the initial flush of Brown’s world-saving narrative has faded to naught.  The Tories get the pick of the posters (cf. the Laurel & Hardy one or the eye-catching ‘In

Saturday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cut the payroll tax and raise the gas tax

Charles Krauthammer has an important piece in the Weekly Standard joining those calling for an increase in the gas tax in the US compensated for by an equivalent reduction in the payroll tax. Here’s what he is proposing: “A net-zero gas tax. Not a freestanding gas tax but a swap that couples the tax with an equal payroll tax reduction. A two-part solution that yields the government no net increase in revenue and, more importantly—that is why this proposal is different from others–immediately renders the average gasoline consumer financially whole. Here is how it works. The simultaneous enactment of two measures: A $1 increase in the federal gasoline tax–together with an immediate

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Free speech doesn’t require giving Ahmadinejad a platform

It is worth returning to Channel 4’s decision to have President Ahmadinejad deliver its alternative Christmas message. Predictably, those who have attacked the decision have been accused of opposition to free speech—just look at some of the comments on the Skimmer’s post. But this criticism misses a crucial distinction: there is a difference between allowing free speech and providing a platform. For example, I oppose criminalising Holocaust denial on the grounds that it is best to defeat these absurd and offensive theories in open debate and that people should be allowed to say what they want, short of incitement to violence, however wrong what they say is. But I would

Peter Hoskin

A New Year’s resolution for David Cameron

Thank you all for sending in your New Year’s resolution suggestions for David Cameron.  We’ve now picked out our favourite; which comes courtesy of Robert Simpson and which, like all good New Year’s resolutions, is simply phrased but also challenging and oh-so-worthwhile.  Here it is: “To resolve to produce 5 core reasons to vote Conservative which every British voter is familiar with by the next election.” Congrats, Robert.  To claim your prize – a bottle of bubbly – just e-mail with your contact details on phoskin @ spectator.co.uk P.S. In case anyone’s thinking that there already are 5 core reasons to vote for the Tories at the next election, think

Peter Hoskin

‘Tis the season for rebellion

Let me offer up something that isn’t quite a prediction, but more something to look out for in 2009: Labour rebellion.  There’s already one brewing over Peter Mandelson’s plans for Royal Mail, and – according to today’s Independent – it could be pretty sizeable.  The reports are that “more than 100” Labour MPs are set to support an early day motion opposing the plans once Parliament reconvenes on 12 January.   Now, this isn’t to say that this rebellion’s a good thing in and of itself.  As Iain Dale wrote memorably a few weeks ago, “Peter Mandelson is right” so far as the Royal Mail reforms are concerned – and

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Merry Christmas

So, here it is again. Well, here’s wishing all friends and readers out there a most jolly Christmas. May it be all you dare hope it could be. Blogging to resume here in three or four days time. Meanwhile, here’s a seasonal scene featuring a rather forlorn-looking Clumber spaniel:

The Skimmer

By inviting Ahmadienjad to deliver its alternative Christmas message Channel 4 has forfeited its right to be a public service broadcaster

Channel 4, the so-called public-service station that brings you Big Brother and other culturally uplifting events, has really scrapped the barrel. It has a record of bringing controversial alternatives to the screen to match the Queen’s annual Christmas message on the BBC and ITV but this year it has taken leave of its senses.   On the day Christians commemorate as the birth of their Saviour — a Jew called Jesus — Channel 4 has chosen to broadcast an “alternative” Christmas message from an anti-Semite who thinks Israel and the Jews should be swept into the sea and who sponsors conferences designed to “prove” the Holocaust is a Jewish myth.

Peter Hoskin

Happy Christmas | 24 December 2008

Coffee House will be going a bit quieter over the next couple of days; so just to wish CoffeeHousers a happy Christmas, and to thank you for reading and contributing over the past year. If you’re looking for something to do, I’d recommend this year’s Christmas short story in the magazine (here); or you could always suggest a New Year’s resolution for David Cameron (here) – we’ll be picking out the best on Boxing Day.

Tuesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Ben Brogan: Three shadow cabinet members would have quit rather than give up their part-time jobs

Ben Brogan has an important update to the story about the shadow Cabinet and their outside interests: “what seems to have happened is fairly straightforward: Dave and George Osborne wanted to call time on part-timers, but when the idea got out there was a backlash behind the scenes. I’m told that three members of the Shadow Cabinet would have quit rather than give up their extra-curricular earnings, led by Mr Hague, whose outside interests brought him £230,000 this year.” This really does call into question their commitment to the cause. One begins to wonder which job they actually regard as their first priority. I suspect that most people who have

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The next president from the land of Lincoln

Obama’s victory speech on election night was not the triumphant hallelujah that some of his supporters wanted. Rather, it was an exercise in expectations management. Ever since his victory became a racing certainty, Obama has been trying to damp down expectations—the inspirational, the ‘planet will begin to heal’ rhetoric has taken a back seat in recent months—aware that expectations could so easily get so high that his first hundred days would be bound to be regarded as a disappointment. This is what makes his choice of the Lincoln Bible so interesting. No president has used this Bible since Lincoln’s first inauguration (history does not record which Bible Lincoln used in

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Part-time jobs for the shadow Cabinet are a full-time weakness for the Tories

The saga of the shadow Cabinet and their second jobs took another turn today with a report in the FT that David Cameron will not force them to give up their outside interests. This strikes me as a mistake. A general election is less than 18 months away and the part-time nature of much of the shadow cabinet—15 of its 31 members have jobs other than their ones as an MP and a shadow minister—is a vulnerability just waiting to be exploited by Labour. The problem is compounded by the fact that many of them holds job that would be easy to demonise in an election campaign. Reportedly, it was

James Forsyth James Forsyth

It was the taking part that counted

Yes the England team lost the series in India and yes there were things to critics about their performance—Shane Warne’s jibe about Monty Panesar’s lack of guile has never rung truer than after this tour, Steve Harmison’s attitude away from home is still deeply frustrating and in continuing to pick Ian Bell ahead of Owais Shah the selectors are taking loyalty to Bush-like levels—but all this pales into insignificance compared to the fact that the tour went ahead. That we are talking about cricket not security today is a small victory for civilisation against the terrorists.   Those responsible for the Mumbai atrocities had many aims. One of them was to

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Fuel for the rich or food for the poor?

Is biofuel a cause worth dying for? Or, more specifically, is the West so sold on the idea that we’re willing to let the poor starve as we fill our cars with the grain it would take to feed a man for nine months? This FAO report from the United Nations counts the damage: 75 million more in undernourished this year as a result of higher crop prices. And, as we now know, from a leaked World Bank report, biofuel production is responsible for three quarters of these price increases.   The UN is in a tricky situation here, as it also organises the IPCC – a collection of the

Peter Hoskin

Encouraging signs for the Tories

The ComRes poll in today’s Independent could well be signinficant.  It puts the Tories on 39 percent (up 2); Labour on 34 percent (down 2); and the Lib Dems on 16 percent (up 2).  But it’s the below-headline findings on tax and spend that really pack a punch.  Tim Montgomerie’s already pulled out the key passage from the Independent article, but I’ll repeat it here for the benefit of CoffeeHousers: “Asked how they would vote if the Tories committed themselves to a lower level of public spending than Labour and to try not to raise taxes – Mr Cameron’s current policy – 49% said Tory, 32% Labour and 11% the